For Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin, that was his “a-ha moment.” He had been a registered Democrat since 1969.

“[I]t was just awful,” Tobin said of the DNC on Tuesday before a meeting of the Rhody Young Republicans in Providence.

Tobin, 65, said he is unwilling to be “associated structurally with that group, in terms of abortion and NARAL and Planned Parenthood and [the] same-sex marriage agenda and cultural destruction I saw going on,” WPRI-TV reports. “I just couldn’t do it anymore.”…

…“I was at one point the state legislator for my district, and at that point there was a big movement here in Vermont to outlaw flag burning, and I took the position then and I’ll take the same position now — the Constitution is not about speak that we agree with. The Constitution is about speech that we don’t agree with. You are free in this country, it seems to me – at least we have been – to express disagreeable opinions.”…